A, The Transfiguration of our Lord - Matthew 17:1-9 "Uncovered Glory"

Matthew 17:1–9 (ESV)  And after six days Jesus took with him Peter and James, and John his brother, and led them up a high mountain by themselves.  And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became white as light.  And behold, there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him.  And Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good that we are here. If you wish, I will make three tents here, one for you and one for Moses and one for Elijah.”  He was still speaking when, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.”  When the disciples heard this, they fell on their faces and were terrified.  But Jesus came and touched them, saying, “Rise, and have no fear.”  And when they lifted up their eyes, they saw no one but Jesus only.  And as they were coming down the mountain, Jesus commanded them, “Tell no one the vision, until the Son of Man is raised from the dead.”

My dog loves to get bones.  Unfortunately, because he is part Labrador, he tends to gulp them down, with an expectation that another is coming.  Therefore, we often give him bones that are frozen, so at least he has to work on them longer, so you might say, to get better value for money out of them.

To my dismay, when we give him a frozen bone, he waits till no one is watching, then finds a secret place in the garden to bury it. 

This is a terrible practice. A nice clean bone gets covered in dirt and once retrieved from the ground any meat on it is shrivelled and engrained with grit, often with the addition of meat ants who’ve come to join the festivities.

But it just doesn’t happen with frozen bones.  If the bone is large and he is not finished chewing it, he has to hide it, to keep it for later, so he can enjoy its goodness later on.

Like my dog, Peter sought to cover Jesus, Elijah, and Moses when they were uncovered on the Mountain of Transfiguration.  Perhaps he sought to keep Jesus’ glory covered for later on!

Up on the mountain the figure of Jesus changed.  Strikingly, vividly, and with this change appeared Moses and Elijah speaking with Jesus. 

The three disciples did not understand what was going on. And nor should they!  Not until Jesus had been raised and had ascended into heaven.  Not until the Holy Spirit came at Pentecost giving understanding and knowledge of who Jesus is, and what he did for us in his life and death with them at that time.  Not until his resurrection then ascension to the right hand of the Father for us.

Glowing in all the glory of God, Jesus is the Son of God, radiantly reflecting his holiness which had been hidden within.  God was giving Peter, James, and John, a glimpse of the eternal glory hidden within Jesus’ human body.

Having seen Jesus’ form change into something glorious, Peter pipes up with an idea.  To build shelters for Jesus, Moses, and Elijah.  Just like my dog burying his bone in the dirt, Peter seeks to cover the uncovered through his dirty human effort, to freeze in time the radiance that was now shining from Jesus.

But Peter’s covering was inappropriate.  His tent was not needed and nor could his work of building it contain the glory of God. Jesus was on the wrong mountain, and the time was not right for his work to be nailed into history.

However, God covered Jesus, Moses, Elijah, Peter, James, and John, with the bright cloud of his Word saying, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.” (Matthew 17:5b ESV)

It’s interesting to note that the brilliance of Jesus’ transformation pleased the disciples as Peter says, “Lord, it is good that we are here.  If you wish, I will make three tents here, one for you and one for Moses and one for Elijah.” (Matthew 17:4 ESV)  But when God the Father envelops them with his covering Word, they fell on their faces in overwhelming fear.

God cannot be locked away from us, nor can the Son or the Holy Spirit.  We cannot build a place to hide God within and without God we cannot be uncovered and made free.  In fact, we cannot cover God in love, “we cannot  love God unless we have received the forgiveness of sins.” (Apology of the Augsburg Confession, Art 4:311, Tappet Edition)

Goodness or pleasure are not found in Peter building three coverings, but in God’s pleasure in Jesus Christ and the goodness of God’s Word where we are called to, “listen to him”, “listen to Jesus”!

Now, I like to talk to my dog.  I talk to him most of the time when I am with him.  My daughter thinks talking to my dog is a sign that I have lost my mind.  Maybe she has a point.  I often ask my dog for advice when I am trying to fix or make something at my workbench.  He looks at me, listening with full attention, with his head cocked to the side.  Surprisingly, he does not answer.  The other day I was telling a relative this and he said, “I bet if the dog spoke back to you, you’d drop dead!”

Hopefully unlike my dog, I do listen to God and his Word.  That I don’t act like I’m listening just to have the pleasure of getting a pat.  But that I hear, and in hearing Jesus’ Word, I receive the uncovered glory of God.  In receiving his Word, I allow the Holy Spirit to temple grace, faith, and love for others, within me.  And I respond in kind, with joy, confessing my sin in the protection of God’s covering, showing others that God’s covering shields me from sin and death.  And that they can have this eternal covering too.

Jesus is present with Moses and Elijah transfigured on the mountain.  He stands with the two great men of the Law in the Old Testament.  The Word of God is joined to the Law on the mountain and the experience of the three disciples turns from, “it is good to be here”, to “not good”.  The disciples fell face down with fatal fear, seemingly death was about to touch them.

Yet the touch they felt was not death but that of Jesus.  “Jesus came and touched them, saying, ‘Rise, and have no fear.’  And when they lifted up their eyes, they saw no one but Jesus only.”  (Matthew 17:7–8 ESV)

They left the Mountain of Transfiguration and glory, but Jesus left knowing full well he was on the way to the mountain of disfiguration and goriness, Golgotha, where death would touch him.

Jesus calls you to follow him.  He touches you with his Word, he touches you with the Holy Spirit, so we stop building our own coverings of pleasure that neither protect us from sin nor death.

God has no pleasure in death.  On the Mountain of Transfiguration Jesus stood with the Law men uncovered in glory, but for only a moment, revealing his perfection under the Law.

He took that perfection under the Law and bore your disfiguration on the Mountain of Atonement, at the cross of Calvary.

As we walk through these days, Jesus does not want you to seek your own coverings.  But rather, from him and the Father, the Holy Spirit continually comes to rescue you from the deadly shelters of your own efforts, your own truths, and your own lives. 

The Holy Spirit seeks to cover you with Christ, and in this covering, he smothers to death the human spirit, that seeks to bury and hide your need for forgiveness.  Your human nature continually seeks to cover God’s need for forgiveness with the dirt and grit of your own good and evil.  Such is the dogged nature of us all.

The Holy Spirit covers you in Christ, so you can be transfigured with Christ, so you can be with God the Father in the eternally pleasing place of Paradise.

Amen.